Things I Learned Today

The Yum, the Yuck and the Beautiful - 

Yummmm - I’m a sucker for stories that promise “try this for the best <insert fav baked goods> ever!” But occasionally one pans out (see what I did there?) and today was that day. 

From a chef on Instagram: make the chocolate chip cookie recipe that's on the chip bag but stir in a handful of well-crushed potato chips at the end. And sprinkle a little kosher salt on the baking sheet before scooping on the dough. I did it for a laugh - and the grandgirls laughed at me when I told them the new recipe - but it really did give the cookies more depth of flavor. Who knew?!

Before…

Yuck - replacing our home network modem/router/wifi equipment hasn’t gotten any easier or more fun. Our internet provider offers ‘self-install’ but promised ‘easy, thorough, step-by-step instructions.’ Riiiiiiiight. 

 After. Biggest difference is more hanging wires…

It took me all afternoon and half the evening to get it done. I’d probably still be at it but I got frustrated, said “f*** it”, plugged everything together where I wanted, and dared it not to work. Bonus - I got my steps in going up and down the ladder 50 bazillion times. 

 Lush Anthurium 

Beautiful - Hubby came back from his second home (Home Depot) with a couple more pretty plants. 

This one was labeled as a bromeliad but the internet says it’s a Pink Quill air-plant, Latin name Tillandsia cyanea or Wallisia cyanea (new classification). They often have a pink spike with little purple blossoms but I like the red just as well.  

The last time I tried growing a bromeliad it became Lily Kitty’s favorite chew toy. Hoping to have better luck with this one. 

Repotting, Plus 100 Days

Block #11 of 20 is complete and #12 is halfway done. Love how doing a little each night is getting this so close to the finish line.

Before Matt started giving me fancy plants, like this pretty thing,

 Aglaonema, aka Chinese Evergreen

I only had a few plants that had survived my black thumb. The two money trees and African violet have been repotted so it was time to do the poor, sad orchid I bought a while back for hubby, and a snake plant that hasn’t grown much in years. Gotta admit I repotted both of these mostly for the practice, although I really hope they survive.

Tiny rootball looks so dry and sad. The pot will be repurposed as a cover for one of the clear pots.

Separating orchid and pot was a pain. The moss was adhered to the sides like it had been glued in. 

After rinsing off the old mossy soil and trimming back its dried out roots, the plant turned out to have a few, very short but (hopefully) viable roots. 

Doesn’t she look better already? Lol. Love these clear pots - so great for observing (crossing my fingers) new root growth. 

The snake plant looked dormant - the one stem it had left (red arrow) hadn’t grown in a long time - so I put it outside on the front porch 2-ish years ago. Imagine my surprise when it *loved* the new environment and produced a pretty little pup. 

The old leaf still wasn’t growing but the pup has gone from a tiny sprout to 3 happy, healthy leaves. Anything that tries that hard deserves another chance to live.

It’s repotted but in quarantine for a week or so to be sure no hitchhikers came indoors with her.

New Babies!

Even though I did the research and watched all the videos, I really didn’t believe this would work. 

Remember the big, wonky money tree I chopped wayyyyy back in an effort to save it and encourage new growth?

It worked! There’s at least 4 shoots starting. So exciting!

And the African violet I divided, keeping the mother plant and 8 babies (plus 3 leaves potted in soil and 4 leaves I’m trying to root in water)?

So many new leaves! 

All 8 re-plants are doing well and have put out new growth. Of the 3 individual soil-potted leaves, 2 are looking good and growing new roots. The water-based leaves aren’t doing anything yet but they supposedly take longer to root. 

I’m glad I checked them today - the wick watering system was working a little too well. All the babies were looking water-logged so they’ll dry out for a bit before I put new wicks back in. 

Crossing fingers they all continue to thrive. 

Free(ish) Orchids

Years ago, shortly after we retired, a friend told me about her ‘waitress savings plan’ at a prior job. 

Basically, any coins she got as tips went into a big jar for… emergencies, vacations, whatever. She said they added up fast!

So we started saving any spare change that came our way. 

We’d usually put it in a box on the closet floor, then once a year take it to the bank and use the $$ for something special on vacation. 

Fast forward to 2020 and due to ‘you know what’ we never got around to cashing in the previous year’s coins. We didn’t cash them in 2021… 2022… 

Jaclyn loved digging through the boxes, counting, stacking, making mazes and asking why we still had them. 

The first day’s deposit

So she’ll be happy to know that we finally turned in 6 years worth of coins. 

Since coins are heavy, we spread it out over 4 days, eventually cashing in 7 shoeboxes and 1 small witch’s cauldron worth of coins.* 

And yes, they added wayyyyyyyy up surprisingly fast. 

We spent part of the $ buying 7 orchids at the Santa Barbara show, and a bit more on grow lights and shelves for our new hobby. Aren’t they pretty??

* We used our credit union’s heavy duty coin counting machine, for a small fee, and the $ was deposited directly into our account. Easy peasy. 

Orchid Date Day

We headed to Santa Barbara this morning for the 78th Annual SB International Orchid Show. 

It’s running all weekend but we figured Friday would be the least crowded, both at the show and on the freeway.

So many different sizes, kinds and colors!

I was fascinated by the different leaf shapes

and the plants with soooooo many spikes/flowers in full bloom. 

They were amazing. 

 Counting the spikes…

We took advantage of the vendor hall to pick up a few (ok, more than a few) mini’s and regular size phalaenopsis. 

 One of my favorite colors

Pics of those tomorrow…

Award-winning display

Horse Camp

First up - this is block #10 of 20 for the wildflower 100 days project. Halfway done!

Donovan went to horse camp this week and loved it.

The temps were so low he had to keep his heavy-duty jacket on all day but it didn’t faze him.

Now there’s talk of him having weekly lessons 

and stable chores at a place near their house. 

So exciting.

First QOQ

A pal and I challenged each other to make a Quilt Of The Quarter using precuts we had on hand. (Here) And look! Still two weeks to go and my windmills quilt (top) is done!

48 x 56”

I played around with several layouts and this was the best one. Still not thrilled with the white stripes but it looks better in person. The metallics are really pretty and sparkly.

Of course, my pal did something much more complicated and finished it a couple of weeks ago… But this is done; I used up fabric I’ve had for years; and it’s going to my Guild’s donation drive where someone will benefit and hopefully love it. Time to start planning QOQ#2.